Curious on others opinions of flag usage. I would like to see what are the advantages of using flags on remote vs processor and for what situations you use one or the other.

Haven't done a whole lot of flag programming yet. I work with devices that pretty much all have discretes so I have only used flags for control of power for some customer supplied equipment.

I have also began looking at flag uses for larger multi room systems (several have been gracious enough to let me look at their work, Thanks). This seems to require use of both and gets a little more confusing. Any other input on large scale projects and the use of flags to manage these systems would be appreciated.

Thanks

On a remote :

- page jumps (i.e zone 2 vs main, etc)
- delay time between macros
- password protection
- Use of different sounds based on what activity is being used
- power/ status of standalone device such as a TV

On the processor:
- all else

Can you elaborate a little on page jumps?

I assume you are saying delay time as in you check power and inputs of sources so that is doesn't try to perform unnecessary steps.

What other things are you doing on the processor related to flags?

Thanks for your time.

Here is an example...

...multizone system with one controller for two or more zones in close proximity ...each zone has it's own color background and volume control hard buttons ...all of the zones controlled by the single remote are on and monitoring the same source ...you want to shut down room one but you do not want to start back at the home page to navigate to a device page in an active room ...a series of standalone flag tests can determine what other rooms are on and what source they are monitoring so that the user is automatically dropped off at the proper device/room control page ...if no other rooms are on then it will display your goodbye page letting the user know that the system is now completely off (think master bed and bath!)

Another.

...a room has a standalone TV in a distributed AV system... there are also speakers in the room that are used for music sources or for enhanced audio for the TV... a page is created (with a quick or secret page jump) that will provide an option to turn on the speakers and control speaker volume for the source you are currently monitoring... standalone flags will track the current source and adjust the called macros to sync with the current video source... the back button will return you to one of several source controll pages depending on what is currently active.

I will use standalone flags to control what is displayed on the remote so that it can simulate some two way features. I just looked at a config created by member OZ AVI in which he used the remote to set a known state for his HVAC system and set a standalone flag. Eveytime he changed the temperature he had a different page displaying the result which was acheived by setting, testing and clearing standalone flags. In addition, you could jump to the temp control page from any device and standalone flags would track that active device page so that the back button would always return you immediately to the proper place ( this was important because a change of several degrees would actually take you to different temp indicator pages requiring the "previous" function to step back through several pages in order to get back to where you were). The backrounds he use were a hoot... a pair of nimble darts at the coldest setting and Pam Anderson with little of nothin' at the warmest.

Or, simply put, a way to goto to a page via the home key or icon based on a flag.

I forgot to mention, which is important, due to RTI's inability to use 2-way communication, you can simulate this with flags either on the remote or on the processor.

For example, if you have 4 scene selections for a lighting controller, when you view the page where the presets are, depending on if you flagged each preset you can set the icon to another color to indicate that the preset shaded is active.

Same could be said for radio presets, or any other situation where you want the user and the remote to always know what specific preset is on just by looking at the remote.